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Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Slow-cooked Pork Shoulder with Tomato Marmalade

This dish comes from Top Chef season 2, and I found it in one of the Top Chef cookbooks - books I like to read, but rarely cook from. However, this was an excellent dish, and I'm glad I tried it. I pretty much followed the recipe but decided to use my crock-pot to make things even easier. It was one of the dishes I served as part of our 13-course menu, so having it all cooked in advance sure helped. I used less liquid than the original recipe, since very little evaporates from the crock pot.

We just served small servings of this, both pork and tomato marmalade, on toast. I have a lot of leftovers in the freezer, and I'm thinking we'll probably serve those with nacho chips and lots of toppings. (Lots of meat, that is - we ate every last bit of the tomato marmalade.)

The tomato marmalade is very zingy and I used a bit more capers than the original recipe called for. It really cuts through the richness of the meat.

Heat the oil in a heavy pot. Season the pork with salt and pepper, and brown it well on all sides.

Lift out the pork and move it to the crock-pot. In the other pot, add the vegetables and the five-spice. Cook on low-medium heat for about 5-10 minutes. The vegetables should have softened. Put the veggies in the crock-pot.

Stir together vinegar, orange juice and beef stock and pour on top of the meat. Cook on low until the meat is really tender - I let mine go for about 8 hours.

Lift out the meat and shred it, using two forks. Place in a heavy pot. Sieve the remains in the crock-pot and discard the solids. Add the juices to the meat. Before serving, re-heat on the stove, and season with salt and pepper.

Cook the sugar and tomatoes on medium heat until the sugar is dissolved - this needs to be watched and stirred. Add everything else, and cook on fairly high heat for about 20 minutes. The marmalade should be syrupy and thick, but it will thicken even more if you let it sit before serving, so try to remember that. Season with salt and pepper if you wish, and serve it with the meat.